"we get all sorts around here."

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Shadows on the Wall 8(/?)

Lestrade has been doing background work too, 'useful work' Sherlock calls it. Sherlock explains the evidence in detail, showing the records from his Home Office pal (Susan who owes Sherlock for introducing her to his brother who is going to make her Prime Minister in ten years) and Lestrade sets the official wheels in motion. John thinks of Raoul (Mark didn't love him, never did love the boys his sister brought him but they were so pretty, so kind but he liked them which was why she did it. He loved her first, of course. First and only and poor silly Raoul is going to die in a prison fight a month before the trial, never knowing.)

John stands off to one side of the desk, eyes on the carpet and lets the two experts

"Do stop sulking, John." Sherlock has appropriated Lestrade's laptop and is busily hopping through the encryption hooks on his website. (Only looks like 32-bit password encryption on first pass. Moriarty's computer-literate and has probably already spotted the traps and tracks on the first two levels of encryption. He's going to miss the third.)

"Sulking?" John wants to laugh. "What could I possibly have to sulk about?"

"Your discomfort at being the amorous target of a gay man does make your previous claims about being 'fine' with gay men somewhat less plausible." Sherlock observes and Lestrade heaves a sigh.

"My discomfort, as you so quaintly put it, wasn't because he was gay and you aren't gay so you don't count," John says, ignoring the flash of images and the phantom feel of Sherlock's long, clever fingers on his inner thighs.

"What makes you think so?" Sherlock is tapping away, not looking up and John snorts.

"Well, you might be but, fashion sense aside, I really doubt it." John says before he can catch himself. Lestrade hides his smile by scowling down at the files. Sherlock looks up at John, fingers pausing over the keyboard and his eyes narrow for a second. Then his website comes up and he turns back to typing out the answer. The phone goes immediately and Lestrade and John watch him bring it to his ear.

Ruth cries out for help and Sherlock relaxes (wasn't sure Moriarty would have left her alive. He'd have hunted the man across every continent if he had). John can't; Ruth sounds exhausted, despairing and she's going to do something. Sherlock asks for the address and he's not listening, not paying attention. John feels his heart sink. (She's not alone even now. The sniper is next block over but the man who has been guarding her is still in the room. Ruth hates him, hates him more than she hates the drunk driver that killed her George and she thinks, she thinks it would be worth it-)

John doesn't hear what she says, just the note of panic in Sherlock's voice when he tells her to stop, to be quiet, not to tell him anything. He knows that in the cheap, dingy flat the man is clawing at the door's deadbolt. Too late.

Sherlock goes very still, eyes wide and he calls out once. Then he holds the phone away from his ear. John pushes away from the wall, ignoring Ruth's last viciously satisfied thoughs. "What's happened?"

Sherlock sets the phone down and doesn't look at either of them. Lestrade swears and John puts a hand on the back of Sherlock's chair. He can guess (feel) the echoing, hollow pain already being ruthlessly suppressed and it terrifies him to watch as Sherlock's icy mask descends again.

It's terrifying because now John understands. Sherlock isn't a sociopath; John's met sociopaths before and they were nothing like Sherlock. This is something more horrifying and John understands suddenly why Mycroft is so worried for his brother. Sherlock isn't a sociopath but he's so clever, so passionate about his work that he's trying to make himself a sociopath through sheer force of will.

John bites his lip and takes over getting Sherlock back to Baker Street and out from under Lestrade's feet. His mind races the whole way home. He's going to have to fix this, no question. Sherlock is such a fucking over-achiever; if he decides to be a sociopath for real then there's no way of telling what he'd do and John has so little time left.

Re: Shadows on the Wall 8(/?)

ladhsfalshdf I LOVE THIS. I love how John's desperation is getting more and more pronounced, and the thing about Sherlock's grandmother and then about how he isn't a sociopath but is trying to make himself one through sheer force of will is just BRILLIANT and PERFECT. I love Ruth's vicious final thoughts, and John's glimpses into Lestrade's home life, and how we're getting hints that Sherlock knows something's up but we don't know quite how much he knows yet... it's all just so wonderful ♥

Re: Shadows on the Wall 8(/?)

It's terrifying because now John understands. Sherlock isn't a sociopath; John's met sociopaths before and they were nothing like Sherlock. This is something more horrifying and John understands suddenly why Mycroft is so worried for his brother. Sherlock isn't a sociopath but he's so clever, so passionate about his work that he's trying to make himself a sociopath through sheer force of will.

Re: Shadows on the Wall 8(/?)

There...isn't any more! *aaaargh! WIPS! There needs to be more of this! Please tell me you are working on it?

I love your characterisation, and Mycroft is perfect in this chapter, and the idea that Sherlock is forcing himself to "be a sociopath" is excellent, nad I live John, and and and... *inarticulate keyboard mashings of glee*

Shadows on the Wall 9(/?)

Sherlock doesn't talk at all for the whole cab-ride home. John doesn't try to make him, too distracted by the dizzying flashes of potential futures. Almost none of them make any sense which means, John thinks as he follows Sherlock up the stairs, that there must a million possible futures spinning off from what happens next. There must be so much depending on the conversation John knows they need to have.

Inside the flat, Sherlock paces around the room, throwing off his coat and refusing to turn on any of the lights. John takes his own coat off and goes into the kitchen. Joe is still singing and there's a shrill harmony coming from the skull. John goes back out into the living room and turns the skull away from the kitchen. The skull stops singing and starts complaining in a nasal tone that grates down John's nerves like an angle grinder. "You're a bloody wanker, you know that?"

John grits his teeth, doesn't answer, doesn't even fucking twitch and goes back into the kitchen instead. Sherlock's gaze drags over him as he moves but it's distracted and god, John can practically see Sherlock repressing emotions and memories and he has to bite his tongue bloody to keep from asking why Sherlock is doing this. He needs more time to plan but watching the façade of Sherlock-bloody-Holmes being rebuilt so fast is leaving him with a sinking feeling that his window of opportunity is being slammed shut.

He doesn't react when the skull calls him a poofter and a tosspot from the mantlepiece. Instead he puts the kettle on and opens the fridge.

"There's no milk, John," Sherlock says, petulant and exasperated, like John is being obtuse on purpose.

"So there isn't," John says calmly, breathing in deeply and he turns back to switch the kettle off. Sherlock's turning on the tv when Joe says "Bit of an arse, really, your boy."

John stops for a second and closes his eyes. The skull sniggers. "Matched set, if you ask me."

No-one did. No-one is going to ask you. John thinks viciously because the fucking news is coming on and the news anchor is telling the world about the 'gas leak' and thinking all the while about how he wants to call his old mum and how he's going to drop into the church across the way at lunch time to say a prayer for the victims and how guiltily relieved he is that it wasn't his mum's block of flats.

Mycroft isn't behind the cover story, not directly. John can see how Mycroft will frown when the report finally crosses his desk. (He's just back from the hospital and this proof that his carefully arranged network failed to detect this threat to his brother in time will drive him into a rage. The underling responsible will be found in the Thames, Cole, Ingrebourne and Brent rivers and no identification will ever be made.)

The news reports are all vague and there's an expert talking knowledgeably about the unreliability of London's gasworks and how Brian Johnson should be ordering commissions to have full inspections. John takes a seat, watching the television but still hyper-aware of Sherlock's ruffled, feline impatience.

"Old block of flats," John points out uselessly because he can't think about Ruth or how satisfied she'd been. He's somewhat surprised to discover that he's still capable of anger, slow and smouldering. Moriarty is going to pay for this, and pay, and pay and pay. (Ruth had been an old woman but the flat underneath had been a family and somewhere in London, Rashid Imhran is being called away from his crappy little desk to be told that his wife of fifteen years and three of their five children were in their flat when the 'gas leak' exploded. He's never going to recover properly and when his eldest daughter is married in December, he'll let himself just slip away one night.)

"Obviously I lost that round," Sherlock says peevishly, stabbing at the remote. "Although technically, I did solve the case."